We booked a Mt. Etna half day tour which included a pick-up from our apartment. A bit after 9 am our guide Diego arrived and we joined 4 others (2 from Moscow & 2 from Germany (but living in Istanbul)) and packed in to a 7 seater Ford Picasso.
About an hour later, after experiencing Sicilian traffic and drivers (our guide Diego included), we arrived on the South side of Mt. Etna at about 2400m high. Mt. Etna, is Europe's largest active volcano, is approximately 3400m high (but this varies with eruptions).
At this point we explored one of the more recent craters, The Silvestri Crater, these are dotted along the side of the mountain. One crater further down, called Mt. Rosa, exploded in 1669 and wiped out the city of Catania and killed over 120,00 people. It actually pushed the coastline out 200m into the sea. The crater is now covered in trees, but the shape of the crater is still observable. Also you can easily see the path of the lava flow from higher craters.
After an hour or so exploring at Silvestri, we headed around the East side of the mountain. The next stop was at a cave, more correctly a lava tube, where we donned safety helmets and used torches to explore the cave. The cave is formed by flowing lava not water like normal caves.
The next stop was at Cassone - Monte Pomiciaro, a secluded but magnificent lookout. Here we could see the smoke billowing out of the active volcano, some snow on a peak (remember it is the middle of summer here and quite warm) and evidence of an enormous lava flow down the side of the mountain into sea to the East of Mt. Etna.
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| No kangaroos? Or no Aussies? |
The last stop on the tour was the visit to a place that had samples of the local produce. This included about 10 different olive oils, pestos, olives, garlics, wines, liqueurs and about a dozen different types of honey. The lemon infused, oregano infused and the onion infused oils were very good (we purchased a small bottle of the oregano). The lemoncello was very nice (just a medium size bottle, having some as I write this blog). The honeys were lovely and we got a jar of the fresh fruit honey, which was like a mix of jam and honey. We also got a jar of pesto. The pesto and oil was our starter for our meal tonight (we bought a baguette at the supermarket to go with this).
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| The hillside covered in Chestnut trees |
When we arrived back to the apartment it wasn't long before we were in the water (we needed to wash all the volcanic dust of ourselves) and spent the rest of the afternoon swimming, sun-baking and even a sleep on the sunbeds.
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| An evening shot of Mt. Etna from the apartment balcony. |
Cheers,
A & K.
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